Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Complete 2013 Iraq Provincial Elections Results

Iraq’s provincial elections are a bit of a paradox. First,
there have been three successful transfers of powers since 2005 when Iraq
regained its sovereignty, which is a positive step for the country’s developing
democracy. However, Iraq’s governorate councils have only limited power. They
rely upon the central government for their budgets and services, and have to go
through the various ministries and agencies to get anything done such as
development plans. This creates a never-ending stream of complaints from the
periphery about the center. In the last several years, these problems have also
led to protests over the inability of Baghdad to provide things such as
electricity and other services. In June 2013, parliament amended
the 2008 Provincial Powers Law, which if implemented would dramatically
decentralize power to the local governments. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki
didn’t pay attention to the original law, and its unlikely that his
centralizing tendencies will allow him to follow through on the new one. The
ministries share the premier’s opinion as well. For instance, the
Municipalities and Public Works Ministry is already claiming that the councils have
no decision-making powers over development projects as the legislation
provides. That means that while there has been a tremendous amount of political
capital expended by Iraq’s elites to form the new governorate authorities they
are really only negotiating over positions, which have limited influence, and
are probably much more important to the parties to dole out patronage. Many
analysts have also pointed out that the 2013 vote could be a harbinger for the
2014 parliamentary elections, but that may not play out. The 2009 provincial
balloting for example was all about local issues like the economy and services,
but that did not really carry over into 2010. That year Maliki’s State of Law
and the Iraqi National Movement started off pushing nationalist issues, but
then soon devolved into whether candidates should be banned for their alleged
ties to the Baath Party. More importantly Maliki's sweeping victory in 2009 only translated into a second place finish in 2010. Next year’s vote is a long ways away, and anything
could happen between then and now, so the trends that evolved during the 2013
balloting may not apply.

As for the actual results, 2013 was a setback for Maliki’s
State of Law. The list was
much larger this year including the Fadhila Party, the Badr Organization,
and Ibrahim al-Jaafari’s National Reform Party. In 2009, State of Law had a
sweeping victory in southern Iraq and Baghdad winning 126 seats, playing upon
the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq’s (ISCI) failure at developing those
provinces. Fadhila won 5, and Jaafari’s National Reform Party pulled in 23. All
together that was 154 seats, and that did not include what Badr won when it was
part of ISCI. In comparison, in 2013 the expanded State of Law only won 109 seats,
a loss of at least 45 seats. Like the Supreme Council beforehand, Maliki’s list
suffered the fate of being the incumbents, and the inability to develop the
provinces they ruled. ISCI’s Citizen’s Alliance and the Sadrists’ Liberal
Coalition were the beneficiaries going from 55 to 61 seats and 41 to 47 seats
respectively. The Sunni vote was similarly divided with Speaker Osama Nujafi’s
Mutahidun coming out with the most seats, 30, compared to his rivals,
Deputy Premier Saleh al-Mutlaq’s Arab Iraqiya, at 10 seats, and Iyad
Allawi’s Iraqiya, 16 seats. All together, those lists lost over 40 seats
however as many voters decided to throw in their lot with smaller parties. That
shows continued lack of leadership in the Sunni community, and the inability of
both those aligned with the protest movement, Mutahidun, and those willing to
work with the prime minister, Mutlaq, gaining much traction with the public. The
Kurdish parties also saw a decline going from 20 seats in 2009 to 15 in 2013. They
seemed to have suffered from voter dissatisfaction as well. When it came to new
ruling coalitions, Anbar, Babil, Baghdad, Basra, Muthanna, and Wasit all
switched hands with State of Law losing control of three of those, most importantly
the capital Baghdad and the economic capital Basra, but also gaining Babil and
Muthanna. The other eight governorates had the same parties holding onto the
governorships. Overall, State of Law could falter in 2014 as well. Being the
incumbent might be only one of their problems however. Today, Premier Maliki is
also being blamed for the deteriorating security situation, which was not
really an issue in this year’s election. Again, only so much can be discerned
about Iraq’s future from this year’s vote as the country is still in a very
fluid situation where things are always changing in unexpected ways.

IRAQ HISTORY TIMELINE

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About Me

Musings On Iraq was started in 2008 to explain the political, economic, security and cultural situation in Iraq via original articles and interviews. If you wish to contact me personally my email is: motown67@aol.com